México state homicide rate drops 58% as unified security strategy shows results
President Claudia Sheinbaum took her Wednesday press conference to Toluca, where federal and state officials presented evidence that a coordinated security strategy has dramatically reduced violence in México state, home to approximately 16.99 million residents.
National Public Security System chief Marcela Figueroa reported that homicides in the state averaged 2.8 per day in June 2026, representing a 58% decline compared to September 2024. The reduction follows implementation of a "unified command" strategy launched in 15 high-crime municipalities in March 2025.
The first half of 2026 saw México state record its lowest homicide rate in 19 years, with an average of 2.9 killings daily—a 31% drop from 2025 and 68% below the 2013 rate of 9.1 per day. Figueroa noted that reported high-impact crimes, including murder, kidnapping, extortion and violent robbery, fell 19% compared to 2025, averaging 116.1 incidents daily.
Arrests and seizures reflect coordinated enforcement
Security Minister Omar García Harfuch credited close cooperation between federal authorities and México state agencies for the results. Since October 2024, when the Sheinbaum administration took office, security forces have arrested 3,367 people for high-impact crimes in the state and seized 1,219 kilograms of drugs and 819 firearms.
García Harfuch, who previously served as Mexico City's police chief from 2019 to 2023 under then-mayor Sheinbaum and was credited with cutting the capital's homicide rate by approximately 50%, described the work as "a strategy based on intelligence and investigation" that has disrupted criminal structures operating in México state.
The security minister survived an assassination attempt in June 2020 when Jalisco New Generation Cartel gunmen ambushed his armored vehicle with over 400 bullets, striking him in the shoulder, collarbone and knee.
Governor Delfina Gómez, who attended the press conference, took office in September 2023 as México state's first female governor, ending 94 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party rule in the state.
Operations target Sinaloa Cartel leadership
When asked about progress toward capturing Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, leader of the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and son of convicted drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, García Harfuch declined to speculate on timing. Instead, he pointed to recent operations as evidence of progress, including the killing of Cristhian Guadalupe Pérez Pérez, known as "El Texas," an alleged Culiacán plaza chief for the Chapitos.
The security minister said federal forces conduct weekly operations in Sinaloa targeting both the Chapitos and the rival Mayos faction. The conflict between these groups began on September 9, 2024, following the arrest of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and has resulted in nearly 2,000 homicides in Sinaloa state over the past year.
Zambada was arrested on July 25, 2024, in New Mexico after Joaquín Guzmán López allegedly kidnapped or tricked him onto a plane bound for the United States, where both men were detained by U.S. authorities.
El Mayo sentenced to life, transfer to Mexico unlikely
On July 20, 2026, Zambada was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court to life in prison without possibility of parole and ordered to forfeit $15 billion in drug trafficking profits. When asked whether the 76-year-old trafficker could serve his sentence in Mexico, García Harfuch said that decision would rest with the Federal Attorney General's Office.
A transfer appears extremely unlikely. Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, stated Monday that Zambada would "spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison, exactly where he belongs."
El Chapo, who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with Zambada, was sentenced to life in prison in the same Brooklyn federal court in 2019 and is now held at the Florence Supermax prison in Colorado. Guzmán escaped twice from Mexican prisons—once in a laundry cart in 2001 and again through a tunnel in 2015.
